well i may be eating my words. 2 weeks ago i agreed with Jolene in that the Epi Swingster is likely that last guitar she will ever need. but on a lark we went to a guy's house to look at a resonator he had for sale among several other guitars. Jo didn't like the heavy reso but appears to have fallen for a Playtime big body f hole archtop. we're going back this evening with a tuner and picks and i'll drag my harps along just for giggles.the price tag is $200. if it will tune up and stay in tune i think it'll be coming home with us.

Congrats. I have had a hankering for an f hole archtop myself (mine are all the round soundhole varierty) lately.

I have run across a few Playtime guitars. They were made by Harmony or possibly Kay (what mail order guitar wasn't) for the Sears catalog. It can't quite have hit the century mark yet though as Playtime guitars did not appear in the catalogs until the early 1940s.

Just a thought but you might want to try stringing it with nickel flat wounds. The heavier the guage the better. It cuts the volume down a tad but helps mellow out the rather thin high end these guitars tend to have.

Yeah, me I got 2 such, they maybe don't sound so great but I love old instruments (and tools, gear, etc)one is probbably 70 or 80 yrs old (SS Stewart), the other is probably 50 something yrs old (Kay).

But even though I have a probably 40 yr old Harptone round hole flat top arched back jumbo that rings like a bell,I love my little Kay f hole arch top and that is the one I keep picking up to play.

At least I think it is a Kay, the Kay is worn almost to obscurity on the headstock.That guitar I found broken in 2 pieces in a garbage bin, broken in 2 at the neck; and missing bridge/saddle and strings.

I glued the neck back together, made a combination saddle/bridge of oak with a knife my brother gave me, put some strings on it, and glued a 50 yr old OLSEN pickup under the strings by the bridge. That little guitar has a testimony (similar to my own )